Dracula Foreignness Quotes

I have come to know your great England, and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 2. Dracula tells Jonathan that he gotten to know and love England through books. Now the vampire Count wishes to leave his isolated castle in Transylvania and move to the big city of London where he will have access to more prey – though Jonathan doesn’t know that yet.

Well I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble; I am boyar; the common people know me, and I am master.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 2. While Dracula agreed with Jonathan that he can speak English, he fears he could be easily picked out as a foreigner in London. He just wants to blend in and not appear foreign – this foreshadows that Jonathan will be detained at Castle Dracula so that the Count can learn the proper way to speak English afrom Jonathan.

But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not – and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, to say, "Ha, ha! a stranger!"

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 2. Count Dracula tells his guest and later prisoner Jonathan Harker that he wants to sound and appear exactly like an Englishman when he goes to London. It makes it easier for a vampire to hunt when his prey trusts him.

Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 4. Jonathan is looking at Dracula lying in his box. He is very troubled that he is helping this creature to move from his base in Transylvania to London and expand his power, creating a new monarchy of vampires to prey on the blood of the English.

Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 24. As Van Helsing’s vampire hunters pursue Count Dracula across Europe to Romania, he explains to Mina the nature of their mission. He paints it as a good vs evil battle, like when the Crusaders travelled east to Jerusalem to reclaim it for the Christians. He believes that they are serving God and it is only religion and Christianity that can prevail over the monsters.

It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are very, very superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 27. Mina in her journal tells of her first trip outside of England, as she journeys with Van Helsing to Transylvania. She is fascinated by the people there and is intrigued by their superstitious beliefs and practices. When one woman sees the red mark on Mina’s forehead she crosses herself and points two fingers at her to ward off evil.
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